Proper 25 - C - October 24, 2010

Luke 18: 9-14

 
By Harry T. Cook
10/18/10

Luke 18: 9-14

Jesus told this parable to those who trusted in their own opinions and regarded others with contempt: "Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a toll collector. The Pharisee, standing off by himself, prayed in this wise about himself, saying, 'God: I thank you that I am not like all the rest, who are thieves, rogues, adulterers or even like this toll collector here. I fast twice a week; I give a tithe.' But the toll collector, standing in the back, would not even assume the attitude of prayer, but was pounding on himself saying, 'God, be merciful to me, a sinner.' I am telling you that this man went home justified rather than the other; for all who exalt themselves will be humiliated, but all who behave humbly will be exalted. (Translated and paraphrased by Harry T. Cook)

RUBRIC

 Some homilists and certain of their consumers will be tempted to turn the above passage into a lesson in the protocols of piety or polite behavior. It is, instead, a social manifesto that sets out to separate the pretender from the authentic person, the smug from the insecure, the well-off from those who have to eke out a living in socially unacceptable ways. It is as if the well-known saying attributed by tradition to Jesus is being illustrated here, viz. "judge not that ye be not judged."

At issue was the relative social and economic positions represented in first century C.E. Palestine. The Pharisee is the economically and socially secure person; the toll collector is the struggling laborer slaving for a hated foreign government. He cheats both government and fellow citizen out of a few shekels here and a few drachmas there so as to be able to feed his family. We know both types in our own day.

The issue is how those who are neither the Pharisee nor the cheating tax collector may keep from turning into the one or into the other, and, at the same time, tolerate the perceived haughtiness of the former and empathize with the abject guilt of the latter -- not to mention his petty larceny motivated by larger need.

WORKSHOP

Clearly the passage treats the Pharisee as an unbearable boob and the toll collector as a kind of religious hero. Neither interpretation suffices.

The Pharisee, generally derided throughout the synoptic gospels, was a distinctive type on the first century Palestinian scene. He was not only observant to a fault but at the same time a theological innovator and modernizer. Contrasted with the Sadducee, the Pharisee was more interested in parsing texts considered sacred and using them to illuminate moral choice than he was in the cultic observances of the Temple. Pharisees were not necessarily among the financially well off. We would say that they "did OK," being perhaps of the mercantile or small-time artisan class.

Custom toll collectors in first century Palestine had a reputation like unto the proverbial tax auditor who flyspecks your tax returns to look for money you may yet owe -- only worse. Both Herod Antipas and the Roman government were keen on having the revenue from tolls on commodities that were both desired and needed by the Palestinian populace. They employed or maybe drafted local Palestinians to do the dirty work. One supposes that among such toll collectors were men with wives and families living at the margins. Thus whenever it was possible to overcharge on a toll and pocket the difference, it was done.

It was not the toll collector's social position that made him "justified," but his confessed knowledge that he did wrong in order to do right. He is labeled "adikoi" -- without rightness -- by the Pharisee. But Luke, in the telling of the story, labels the toll collector "dedikaiōmenos" -- "upright" or "with" or "of rightness."

That is tantamount to saying of someone who deliberately overcharged you that he was nonetheless a solid citizen. Yet who would not rather have the Pharisee for a neighbor? He cheats no one. He goes to church regularly. Even though his self-regard is well-nigh intolerable, better him than a cheat just over the back fence.

It is a paradox that the tax cheat comes out looking like a hero and the religiously observant one like a schlub. The low-life customs collector who has probably fleeced hundreds goes home believing that he abides in a state of grace, is right with his god and in love and charity with his neighbors, all because he stood in a remote corner of the Temple's Court of Israel and abased himself. The fellow who has obeyed the law to its letter and is not ashamed to thank providence for the sense to have done so is the goat.

The gospel will trip you up every time.

HOMILETIC COMMENTARY

One key to understanding this parable may be found in the context of the lives of Jesus Jews in the last third of the first century C.E. They were hemmed in on the one hand by the continuing Roman disturbances, and, on the other, by the various competing forms resident in the more traditional assemblies or synagogues.

In a recasting of characters, the Pharisee of the parable at hand would be the synagogue Jew with his life and religion in order, looking down upon the upstart Jesus Jew, unsure of himself in a brave new world trying to make a way for himself. He goes to church to make a ritual act of contrition, hoping for a moment of inner peace before he must return for his shift at the toll gate to exact more pelf for the hated occupiers with a few drachmas deftly pocketed so his children might not go hungry.

Luke takes the part of the Jesus Jew, spinning the parable so as to exalt the humble and diminish the proud, never mind the moral problems of toll collecting and theft.

Perhaps a promising homiletic take on 18: 9-14 is the proposition that one's station in life by itself avails nothing. It is how you allow yourself to be guided in living out who and what you are going forward from that station.

If the pompous Pharisee goes home and treats his wife, children, family and friends with dignity and affection, then he is, indeed, "dedikaiōmenos"  If the customs collector goes back to his work and does it honestly, cheating no one, he remains "dedikaiōmenos" - if only because he acknowledges that he is forever tempted to do so. Post confession and absolution, his income may be less, but what bread his children eat will have been gotten honestly and thus be itself "dedikaiōmenos."

It isn't fair, but it is right. What Luke doesn't say here but says elsewhere in one way or another is that such conditions need to be made fair once they have been made right. The laborer is worthy of his hire and his children of sufficient bread.